Use the following 5-day plan to help students conduct this week's Internet
inquiry
activity on the discoveries Lewis and Clark made on their journey.
Remind students
to follow classroom rules when using the Internet.
Identify Questions Discuss the lesson focus question: What did Lewis
and Clark learn on their journey? Ask students to think of questions they
have about what Lewis and Clark learned. Have individuals, pairs, or
small groups write an inquiry question they want to answer, such as: What
did they learn from Native American tribes they encountered?
Navigate/Search Have students begin a simple Internet search using a
student-friendly search engine. Discuss how to choose the best keywords
related to students' inquiry questions. Explain keywords should be specific
and relate directly to their topic. They can use trial and error with different
keywords to narrow or expand their search to find relevant Web sites.
Analyze Have students explore the Web sites they identified on Day 2.
Model ways students can analyze a site for credibility, reliability, and
usefulness.
For example, a museum or a government site is usually
reliable,
while a site created by an individual might not be accurate.
Tell students
to scan the best sites for information that helps answer
their inquiry
questions. They can print and highlight relevant
information, if allowed, or
take notes about it.
Synthesize Have students synthesize information from Day 3. Encourage
students to think about the best way to organize the information they
gathered.
Communicate Have students share their inquiry results. They may want
to create a table in a word processing or spreadsheet program to list
information that answers their inquiry question. For example, they could
list information about different tribes Lewis and Clark encountered on
their journey west.
